Truly, let's not miss out on anything! For example, by running a total of 1500 kilometers in five different places in the same year. Places and races - or, to say it more accurately, extreme challenges - that are not exactly just around the corner: Sri Lanka, the Sahara desert, the Gobi desert, Atacama, and Antarctica. Deserted places, but with very different features from one another. A feat that until now has been achieved only by a number of runners that can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The index finger could be represented by him, Franco Zomer, because it points out the path to take (or rather, the one he's taken), the one towards solidarity.
Zomer, an osteopath with many other occupations, born in the Trentino region and transplanted to Tuscany (after serving in the Folgore Paratroopers' Brigade), has taken on this extraordinary adventure in order to raise funds in favor of an association of which he is one of the co-founders and also its current president: the Maratonabili, an association whose members push the wheelchairs of disabled persons competing in marathon races.
The friends of the Tor know Mr. Zomer well, as well as all the members and supporters of this association (founded in 2009), because they're always in the front line at the Tor des Géants®, but also play a primary role in so many other sports events all over Italy.
The unstoppable globetrotting osteopath's undertaking has required strong legs and a strong mind, and most of all, heart and passion. In order to allow special athletes, namely the young wheelchair riders who constitute the great team of the Maratonabili, to participate in their first international marathon, and therefore see their dreams come true. But also to invite other runners to take on a goal that goes way beyond performance in sports, namely, sharing and solidarity.
All in all, this is a hair-raising undertaking for Franco Zomer. Even literally, since he even crossed the finish line of his last race, in Antarctica, on the ice of the South Pole, barefoot. But with his always present huge red wig on his head.
We will see him again on the front lines at the Tor des Géants® 2017, as has become traditional.
Because the Maratonabili are unstoppable.